Scream announced a new trio of steelbooks: Army of Darkness, The Howling, and Lifeforce. And the Lifeforce re-release will have a new 4K scan of both cuts

...The Blu-rays included inside will have the same content (but with different disc label art) that is currently available in their respective Collector Edition releases. The exception to this is LIFEFORCE—which we’re pleased to announce that we’ve been the green-light to do brand-new 4K film transfers on both versions of the film!

Extras and specs are still in progress and will be announced later in early July. However, we can confirm today that we will be doing a brand-new HD film transfer and will be correcting the soundtrack issues that were present on the previous DVD release.

Hope they get Doug Benson for an interview or commentary track.

The Unborn Blu-ray also on August 14th.Brainscan Blu-ray on August 28th.

What's the story with Shout Factory's encoding? I just got Of Unknown Origin, which says it comes from a new 2K master, but it often looks digital and filled with artifacts. I know it can't be Warner as their 2K masters licensed to Criterion or released on Warner Archive look spectacular. I'm always reluctant to get Shout Factory discs as they can look lousy, but I can't see there being much of an excuse for this in 2018. Although I did appreciate the interview with the guy who gets his head blown up in Scanners, the picture quality is a real let down.

I can confirm a few things that I noticed. There's a moment with Bobby Peru where he opens a door and the audio seems to skip oddly. It sounds very off, but it could just be the film or just me mishearing something.

There is no audio in the main menu/top menu, which I found odd but could be intentional. Aside from that, the film looked pretty good (though not great). It also seems like some scenes of graphic violence were restored back into the film. I can say with certainty that you can see the head explosion in full glory.

...It also seems like some scenes of graphic violence were restored back into the film. I can say with certainty that you can see the head explosion in full glory.

I don't think there were multiple scenes of violence that required censoring to get an "R" rating. The head explosion was retained, but Lynch was obligated to superimpose a plume of smoke that obscured some of the details. When you say "full glory", do you mean the superimposed smoke has now been removed? The other instances of imposed alterations were for the sex scenes: Lynch came up with a creative way to reduce the graphic nature of these scenes by having specific shots half-dissolve to a yellowish orange color. I always thought this was an inventive decision that added to the scenes instead of taking something away.

Yeah, I find it unlikely the “head explosion” has been restored to its original state, but I’d be absolutely happy to be proved wrong. It seems like something that Shout! would highlight in the specs if they’ve released the film in it’s non-US version.